Aylin kept her hand on the drowned shutter after Jiang's answer disappeared.
The shell beneath her palm no longer carried Hest's iron scrape. Water pressed against its outer face and stayed there, cut off from every rhythm on the other side.
She hit the shell hard, dragged Valea's shaving across it, and finished with a lighter tap. Nothing returned.
"Aylin," Vessa said from the dry step above her.
"I know," Aylin answered, although knowledge did not make her hand move.
She did not know whether Jiang had cleared the closing scar. She did not know what had broken Hest's bar or why the water stopped immediately after Jiang's answer. The silence could hold a reunion, a body, or both.
Pretending one possibility was certainty would not make him safer.
Aylin lowered the shaving.
A pressure strike crossed Cairnspire's outer water.
It did not come through the shutter. The force arrived from below, entered the ruined gate teeth, and drove cold spray up the steps around Aylin's knees.
